In a significant move to combat examination malpractices, the Minister of Education, Yaw Osei Adutwum, recently revealed a series of transformative measures set to reshape the upcoming 2024 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
This announcement comes in the wake of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) canceling the results of over 3,500 students in the 2023 WASSCE due to alleged exam misconduct.
Addressing journalists in Accra, the Minister highlighted the government’s commitment to addressing challenges within the education sector. One of the key initiatives highlighted is the introduction of a randomization policy for exam questions. This move aims to revolutionize the examination process, making it more robust and impervious to cheating.
Drawing attention to past incidents, the Minister mentioned the cancellation of more subjects in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in 2014, emphasizing the need for decisive action.
Collaborating with WAEC, the government introduced the serialization of questions for BECE to curb malpractices. Now, the focus is shifting towards randomizing questions for WASSCE, adding an extra layer of security to the examination system.
The Minister explained, “Candidates can sit in the same room as other candidates, but the questions will be randomized. How can you cheat? So this cheating business, we are going to stop it. We as a government are committed to ending cheating; we have begun on a journey that our results and questions are genuine.”
This move comes on the heels of WAEC’s release of provisional results for the 2023 WASSCE, where the council blocked the results of 4,878 candidates for failing to return learning support materials supplied by their schools.
Additionally, WAEC withheld subject results of candidates from 235 schools for providing artificial intelligence-generated answers during the examination.
Source: GESHub.org
